


how to tell your lover you’ve seen all their secret gardens

by o666666



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Post-Episode: s07e02 The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:14:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22757596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/o666666/pseuds/o666666
Summary: Scully plays with Mulder’s hair. Mulder confesses he’s read her mind.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 8
Kudos: 147





	1. Chapter 1

She had left abruptly earlier this afternoon, visibly shaken by how close they’d come to sealing the deal.  
  
 _My constant. My touchstone.  
  
And you are mine._  
  
His touchstone rolls up with Indian food a few minutes after 8:00, bouncing on the balls of her feet in his doorway. “Hi,” she says to him, nervous, and holding up the takeout bag as if he expects her to explain herself. “You need to eat something.”  
  
He agrees. “Curry heals.” He checks her out for a moment too long and forgets to usher her inside, so she walks in under his arm.  
  
“What’d you do today?” she asks. (She had not seen him at the office after all.) She’s flirty, spinning around to face him and walking backwards into his apartment, letting him pursue her.  
  
“Nothin’ really.” He shrugs. “I read the first half of _Misery_ again, but then ABC started playing re-runs of _Tenko_.”   
  
She drops the bag on the coffee table, toes off her shoes, and fixes him with a raised eyebrow. “You shouldn’t be reading, Mulder. Not with a head injury.”  
  
He plops down on the couch. Pats the space next to him. “Okay, Doc. Come take a load off.” She glares.   
  
This is another type of flirtation. Scully’s sternness is directly proportional to her love. _We are each strange in our way_ , he thinks.   
  
He finishes his lamb korma at rapid speed, leans back, and promptly falls asleep.   
  
He dreams of the beach and the boy.  
  
-  
  
When he wakes up, it’s to hands in his hair, and Scully’s exaggerated pout. “Who did this to you?” she whispers.   
  
He’s groggy. “The, uh… the attempted lobotomy?”  
  
She giggles a little, sadly. “This _haircut_ , Mulder,” she says. “It’s too spiky.” She teases it upwards. She sticks her bottom lip out. Her elbows are on his shoulders, and her forearms are framing his face.  
  
He smiles at her as he did this afternoon, dreamy. “You like me a little more suave?”  
  
She nods.  
  
“Okay,” he says. “I’ll remember.”  
  
They are still whispering, he realizes. And trembling on the couch as if they are expected to resist one another.   
  
_I love you_ , he is about to say. But she interrupts him.  
  
“I was so worried, Mulder.” She sounds desperate.  
  
He nods. He knows. He _heard_.  
  
“It’s alright.” He strokes her cheek. She leans her head on his shoulder and curls her arms around his neck.  
  
“Thank you for dinner.”  
  
“‘m gonna change your bandage before I go,” she mumbles.  
  
“Okay,” he says. “No rush though.” And he holds her tight.


	2. Chapter 2

She does not change his bandage before she leaves. She changes his bandage and promptly resumes her spot on the couch. She’s acting like she doesn’t want to go home, he thinks, and then he realizes: _Scully doesn’t want to go home._

And he really, really doesn’t want her to. He had been in the hospital for a week, in and out of CT scans and fMRIs and other various and more complicated attempts at neuroimaging that Scully had illuminated for him with gentle bedside pedagogy. There had only been fleeting opportunities for this sort of nuzzling they’re doing. And before that, she’d been on the Ivory Coast. No nuzzling for miles. 

He doesn’t even want to _think_ about where he’s been. It does not, could not, compare to his sofa, right now, as Scully dozes next to him. 

She’s worn out. Scully carries her fears alone, and they are weighty. This afternoon, partial relief had made her guilty. She had cried for him after Diana’s death, and he had felt the ferocity of her love for him burgeoning under her practices of platonic care, as strongly as he had heard it in her head after their encounter with the artifact. 

He has to tell her.

“Scully,” he whispers. He touches her shoulder. 

She turns her head and opens one eye. “You ‘kay?” 

_Jesus Christ, she loves me._ He can’t shake it. “I… I’m good,” he says. Then he gets nervous. “I’m sorry to wake you. Go back to sleep.” 

“No, I’m up, I’m up. Whaddizzit?” she asks, rubbing her eyes. She turns toward him and leans her cheek on the back of the couch. Then she yawns, too comfortable to cover her mouth, and he grins. 

She blinks at him. Her regard is still and strong and quieting. 

He has to tell her.

“Do you believe that I could… hear… thoughts, when I… after the rubbing came into our possession?”

She sits up. “Mulder…”

“I need to know, Scully.”

“Do _you_ believe that you could hear thoughts, Mulder? That the artifact truly caused your injury? You—you were taken, operated on, and the damage to your brain is almost surely—” 

“ _Scully_ ,” he says. He realizes he is breathing hard. But he doesn’t explain further. He only says her name. 

“ _What_ , Mulder?” He cannot read her mind. But he can feel her trepidation. He knows that she sees him, seeing her, and he knows that she is afraid. 

Scully is reluctant to give her truths away, and easily dissuaded.

“I know you were in the hospital, Scully. That you came to see me and that they wouldn’t let you, because I was a danger to myself and others, and that you wanted to see me even after—”

“Mulder, I don’t know what Diana told you. I don’t know what Skinner told you. But you were not dangerous. You were in pain.”

“No one told me anything. I knew you were there the moment you walked in the door. I _felt you_ , Scully,” he breathes, and her chin wrinkles, and she takes on that look she gets when compelled to cry. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she tells him. But she does not sound sure. 

“I heard you in the elevator,” he says. 

“No, Mulder. You didn’t hear me. You—your eyes glazed over, you were experiencing symptoms of seizure!”

He leans closer. Puts his hand on her thigh, and looks at her fiercely. “I don’t mean that I heard what you said, Scully. I heard _you_. I _know_ I did. I _know_ it was you. It had to have been you, Scully, I—I’ve _never_ felt that—” 

“Mulder,” she says, voice tight, like she needs him to stop. He grabs her shoulders and rubs her biceps with his thumbs. He leans his forehead close to hers. “I know it was you,” he whispers. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she protests, and when she blinks, tears come down her cheeks. 

“I _know_ you,” he tells her, vehemently, and he feels like a bully. 

She shakes her head futilely. “You were with Diana.”

He takes her chin and makes her look him in the eyes. “I know you. I screamed for you. And I heard you screaming out for me.” 

She is so tense. 

“You’re the _only one_ who feels like that,” he says. “For me.” 

She sniffs. 

“The _only one_ who protects me.” He tries to swallow around the lump in his throat. “I know that, now.” 

He leans to kiss her, just to the right of her nose, and he feels her flinch. “Scul _ly_ ,” he whispers, heart breaking. He pulls her to him, pressing her head to his shoulder, and she cries harder, in earnest. His strong girl. Fighting it to the death. “I’m not gonna make you say it,” he soothes. He pets her hair. 

She does not deny there is something, indeed, to say. 

He presses his lips to her ear and whispers. “Look at me.”

She does. 

“I need you,” he tells her. He kisses her forehead, once. 

“I thank you.” Twice. 

“ _I love you_. Just…” He clears his throat. “Just tell me when, okay?”

She nods, wipes her eyes. “Okay,” she says, quiet. Still disrupted, but less. “Okay. Yes.” 


End file.
